The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.

Department of Commerce IoT Paper

The Department of Commerce issued a green paper outlining guiding principles and an approach to support the advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT).  The report was developed by the Department's Internet Policy Task Force and Digital Economy Leadership Team.  It finds that the increased scale, scope, and stakes of the IoT will lead to opportunities and challenges that are qualitatively different than prior technological advances.  The paper identifies four principles that should guide the Department’s future activities:

• Ensure the IoT environment is inclusive and widely accessible to consumers, workers, and businesses;

• Recommend policy and take action to support a stable, secure, and trustworthy IoT environment;
• Advocate for and defend a globally connected, open, and interoperable IoT environment built upon industry-driven, consensus-based standards; and
• Encourage IoT growth and innovation by expanding markets and reducing barriers to entry and by convening stakeholders to address public policy challenges.

The paper identifies four broad areas of engagement to meet these goals.

FTC Robocall Crackdown

The Federal Trade Commission announced it had settled two cases brought against large robocall telemarketing operations, each of which have been blasting robocalls to consumers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry since at least 2012.  As part of the settlements, many of the defendants will be permanently banned from making robocalls, making any calls to numbers listed on the DNC Registry, violating the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), and/or assisting others in doing so.  The settling defendants also will pay the Commission more than $500,000.  Monetary judgments for civil penalty totaling over $10 Million were suspended due to the defendants inability to pay.

The first set of defendants were charged with illegally blasting millions of robocalls in 2012 and 2013 to consumers on the DNC Registry selling home security systems or generating leads for home security installation companies.  In just one week in July 2012, the defendants allegedly made more than 1.3 million illegal calls to consumers nationwide, 80% of which were to numbers listed on the DNC Registry.  The second set of defendants made or helped to make billions of robocalls between 2009 and 2016, many of which sold extended auto warranties, search engine optimization services, and home security systems, or generated leads for companies selling those goods and services.  Many of those calls were to numbers on the DNC Registry.  In the first quarter of 2015, the FTC alleged that the defendants blasted out 222 million calls, including 40 million to numbers on the DNC Registry.

Maine FairPoint Communications/Consolidated Communications Merger

The PUC opened a proceeding to review the proposed transaction between FairPoint Communications and Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc.  See the Regulatory Mix dated 1/10/17.  At a conference held on January 11, 2017, the Hearing Examiner scheduled a Case Conference to finalize the procedural schedule for this case to take place on January 23, 2017.

Washington 10-Digit Permissive Dialing  

In May 2016, the UTC approved a plan to implement a new area code, 564, which will be available to all of western Washington including the 360, 206, 253, and 425 area codes as numbers in those areas run out.  The commission also approved mandatory 10-digit dialing for all western Washington area codes by this fall.  The  NANPA projects the 360 area code will be out of numbers by early 2018. The 564 area code will start being distributed in the fall of 2017 to new numbers in the 360 area code.  TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 7/1/16.